The Bach Ice Shelf is an ice shelf

Ice shelf

An ice shelf is a thick, floating platform of ice that forms where a glacier or ice sheet flows down to a coastline and onto the ocean surface. Ice shelves are only found in Antarctica, Greenland and Canada. The boundary between the floating ice shelf and the grounded ice that feeds it is called...

 which is irregular in shape and 45 miles (72.4 km) in extent, occupying an embayment in the south part of Alexander Island

Alexander Island

Alexander Island or Alexander I Island or Alexander I Land or Alexander Land is the largest island of Antarctica, with an area of lying in the Bellingshausen Sea west of the base of the Antarctic Peninsula, from which it is separated by Marguerite Bay and George VI Sound. Alexander Island lies off...

 entered between Berlioz Point

Berlioz Point

Berlioz Point is a snow-covered headland on the south side of Beethoven Peninsula, Alexander Island, marking the northwest entrance point to the embayment occupied by Bach Ice Shelf. The south part of Alexander Island was first roughly mapped by the United States Antarctic Service in 1940, but...

 and Rossini Point

Rossini Point

Rossini Point is a snow-covered point on the south coast of Alexander Island, marking the southeast side of the entrance to the embayment occupied by Bach Ice Shelf. First seen and roughly mapped by the United States Antarctic Service , 1939-41...

. A minor embayment in this position first appeared on the charts of the US Antarctic Service, which explored the south part of Alexander Island by air and from the ground in 1940. The ice shelf was delineated by Derek J.H. Searle of the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey in 1960, from air photos obtained by the Ronne Antarctic Research Expedition

Ronne Antarctic Research Expedition

The Ronne Antarctic Research Expedition was an expedition from 1947-1948 which researched the area surrounding the head of the Weddell Sea in Antarctica.-Background:...

 in 1947–48. It was named by the UK Antarctic Place-Names Committee

UK Antarctic Place-Names Committee

The UK Antarctic Place-Names Committee is a United Kingdom government committee, part of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, responsible for recommending names of geographical locations within the British Antarctic Territory and the South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands...

 after the German composer Johann Sebastian Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...

.